How do I access a VB DLL from Java?

Question

i have some .dll files which has been used by some VB program now i have to port the application in java but the .dll file provider is not providing any jars or API for java platform. since my requirement is to access the code written in those .dll files in java class , is there any solution to aceesss the .dll ??

thasks in advance...:)

i also got one solution

package jnahelloworldtest;


import com.sun.jna.Library;
import com.sun.jna.Native;
import com.sun.jna.NativeLong;
import com.sun.jna.Platform;
import com.sun.jna.*;

/** Simple example of native library declaration and usage. */
public class Main {
    public interface simpleDLL extends Library {
        simpleDLL INSTANCE = (simpleDLL) Native.loadLibrary(
            (Platform.isWindows() ? "simpleDLL" : "simpleDLLLinuxPort"), simpleDLL.class);
        // it's possible to check the platform on which program runs, for example purposes we assume that there's a linux port of the library (it's not attached to the downloadable project)
        byte giveVoidPtrGetChar(Pointer param); // char giveVoidPtrGetChar(void* param);
        int giveVoidPtrGetInt(Pointer param);   //int giveVoidPtrGetInt(void* param);
        int giveIntGetInt(int a);               // int giveIntGetInt(int a);
        void simpleCall();                      // void simpleCall();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        simpleDLL sdll = simpleDLL.INSTANCE;

        sdll.simpleCall();  // call of void function

        int a = 3;
        int result1 = sdll.giveIntGetInt(a);  // calling function with int parameter&result
        System.out.println("giveIntGetInt("+a+"): " + result1);

        String testStr = "ToBeOrNotToBe";
        Memory mTest = new Memory(testStr.length()+1);  // '+1' remember about extra byte for \0 character!
        mTest.setString(0, testStr);
        String testReturn = mTest.getString(0); // you can see that String got properly stored in Memory object
        System.out.println("String in Memory:"+testReturn);

        Memory intMem = new Memory(4);  // allocating space
        intMem.setInt(0, 666); // setting allocated memory to an integer
        Pointer intPointer = intMem.getPointer(0);

        int int1 = sdll.giveVoidPtrGetInt(Pointer.NULL); // passing null, getting default result
        System.out.println("giveVoidPtrGetInt(null):" + int1); // passing int stored in Memory object, getting it back
        int int2 = sdll.giveVoidPtrGetInt(intMem);
       //int int2 = sdll.giveVoidPtrGetInt(intPointer);  causes JVM crash, use memory object directly!
        System.out.println("giveVoidPtrGetInt(666):" + int2);

        byte char1 = sdll.giveVoidPtrGetChar(Pointer.NULL);  // passing null, getting default result
        byte char2 = sdll.giveVoidPtrGetChar(mTest);        // passing string stored in Memory object, getting first letter

        System.out.println("giveVoidPtrGetChar(null):" + (char)char1);
        System.out.println("giveVoidPtrGetChar('ToBeOrNotToBe'):" + (char)char2);

    }
}

but this could not helped me out.

Answer 1

You can use DependencyWalker to figure out what functions are being exported from the DLL.

VB uses the stdcall calling convention, so you'll need to extend from StdCallLibrary rather than Library, and you'll probably need to initialize your library with a StdCallFunctionMapper, since your DLL's exported methods likely decorate the method names with a @NN suffix.

Map options = new Map();
options.put(Library.OPTION_FUNCTION_MAPPER, new StdCallFunctionMapper());
SimpleDLL dll = (SimpleDLL)Native.loadLibrary("simpleDLL", SimpleDLL.class, options);